Volgograd c. 1970s

Georgi Zelma made this photograph, Volgograd, which has a grainy, ethereal quality, almost like it was constructed from memory. I imagine Zelma, camera in hand, searching for the right angle, the right light, to capture the monumentality of the statue, Motherland Calls. You can see it hovering in the background like a ghost, sword raised, a symbol of resilience, while the industrial landscape hums below. The electrical towers, rising up into the sky, become strange bedfellows to the monument. It's a stark contrast: the heroic idealism of the past and the gritty reality of the present, coexisting on the same plane. What was Zelma thinking as he framed this shot? Perhaps he wanted to capture the spirit of Volgograd, not just as a place of historical significance but as a living, breathing city, caught between its past and its future. It reminds me a bit of some early Soviet photography, trying to forge a new identity out of the ashes of the old. Artists, always trying to make sense of the world, and each other.